The story below is from the AP. Apparently the pilots weren't crazy about the work rules in the contract and feel they'll get jobs elsewhere easily. While that's true, they'll be at the bottom of someone else's seniority list and, frankly, as someone running an airline, I'd think long and hard about hiring them before they bring their troubles to my shop.

Comair Pilots: Job Prospects Good

By TERRY KINNEY
.c The Associated Press

COVINGTON, Ky. (May 13) - Striking Comair pilots say the airline industry's demand for pilots could make it easy for them to leave their jobs and work for competitors.

Paul Lackie, a spokesman for the Comair pilots' union, said as many pilots - 1,350 - are hired each month by the industry as work for Comair.

''The current (monthly hiring) rate is almost equal to the entire Comair pilot group,'' Lackie said.

In two days of telephone voting, Comair pilots rejected a proposal that would have ended their walkout, which began March 26. The vote was 1,042 to 99, the union said Saturday.

The union said compensation and retirement benefits were considerations in the lopsided vote, but the biggest problem was in work rules. It said the mediated settlement proposal would have added 45 minutes to pilots' 14-hour days.

''That was a slap in the face to the pilots,'' said union chairman J.C. Lawson, who announced the vote.

The company had said the pilots' decision was critical for the future of Comair, a Delta subsidiary and the nation's second-largest regional airline.

Comair has canceled all flights through June 10 and, as it earlier said it would, laid off 2,000 of its 4,000 nonstriking employees on Sunday. Delta also said it has received offers for 60 of Comair's aircraft.

''They are making a statement about the future direction of Comair and their own careers,'' Frederick W. Reid, Delta's president and chief operating officer, said as the pilots began voting Thursday.

The National Mediation Board crafted the proposed settlement after eight days of negotiations between Comair and the pilots in Washington didn't produce an agreement.

No new talks are scheduled, and the mediation board has said it will be at least 30 days before new talks can be held.

Comair, based at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, carried about 25,000 passengers a day on flights to 95 cities in the United States, Canada, Mexico and the Bahamas. The strike is the first since Comair's 1977 founding.

It's my utmost hope that airline managment around the world begin their own "Cancer list" of striking Comair pilots, just as ALPA has it's "Scab list" for Continental pilots. Then, the Comair pilots can modify their claim to "We'll get jobs, just not FLYING jobs".

Jetpilot - If "changing things for the better" means putting your non pilot coworkers who didn't have the "luxury" of a strike fund, out of a job, and shutting down an airline, then pilots have no larger brains than lemmings - who follow one another blindly off the edge of a cliff. It's a rather scary thought to think I had been entrusting my life to someone with such little capablility to think.

There you go JETPILOT: you wanted to see the reson why they rejected the contract-and the biggest reason? 45 minutes added to the workday! Wow! What a HUGE reason for shutting down a company and putting thousands out of a job!! I think that's tantamount to slavery, yesiree. So much for your honorable colleagues at Comair.

And I've noticed something from you JETPILOT-not ONCE have you shown the slightest sympathy for the people that the pilots put out of work, who did not have a strike fund to keep even a little income coming in. You keep crying about these poor pilots. Well, if they're response to all this is "big deal, we'll get jobs", then I have even less respect for them than when all this started. They're just like you are-only out for themselves, and not worried one damned bit about the coworkers they screwed over.

These changes result in a reduction to the scheduled duty period ranging from 30 minutes to 2
hours and 45 minutes and a reduction to the actual duty period due to irregular operations ranging
from 1 hour and 15 minutes to 3 hours and 30 minutes. Incidentally, these maximum scheduled
and actual duty periods proposed in the Offer are the shortest duty periods among airlines
operating similar equipment to Comair.

Are they trying to bluff management? Thinking that they won't be out on their butts? Flipping burgers? Hauling fruit in South America? They will find some sort of job I am sure, but it will not be as good as what they were offered, I can almost guarantee that. Out of the lot, I am sure there will be exceptions, but not for most of them. I just hope that Delta puts the Comair non striking workers back to work under the ASA umbrella. The routes have to be flown, its just a matter of the paint jobs and the uniforms of the people and planes handling it.

A woman drove me to drink and I didn't have the decency to thank her. - W.C. Fields

Are the Comair pilots wise to be so confident that they'll all find equal-or-more-lucrative jobs? How many airlines in the US will be eager to hire a pilot who just participated in the rubbing-out of his last company because the pay raise was 40 percent instead of 85 percent?

Maybe the demand will overcome this natural and reasonable fear. But it may not.

Because a job is a job. We all put effort into our jobs. If you want part of the company, buy some stock.

The fact is, walking out on your job is about the dumbest thing I have ever seen. If I was ComAIR, I would honor my right to hire new pilots to replace the ones on strike (which is totally legal). And then, they do not have to hire the striking pilots back. Totally legal. One of the articles stated that as many piltos were hired each month as work for ComAir.... sounds like a good deal to me.

Fact of the matter is, if you care that little about the compan yyou work for as to just walk out and let them lay off half their staff, then their efforts have hurt the company more than helped it.

And this 45 minutes extra a day of work is crap. Its not like pilot's are flying for 14 hours a day. I have plenty of airline pilot friends, and some are at Delta, and they all look down on these guys.

My favorite part is the figure hired per month. I wouldn't be surprised if that is around the world, and not just in the US/Canada. Unless we have many bilingual pilots, that amount that can be hired in a month goes down to 600 or so. Plus the fact that other companies are probably going to be laying off workers soon too(Midex, for example), this makes that number even smaller.

And one of those airlines that was hurting for pilots was.......Comair! They have been recruiting hard and heavy for students for their flight academy, but with the strike, they're having to let those students take jobs at other airlines instead of @ OH. Sounds great to me, the starting pay for a 1st Officer at Comair is less than what a ramper makes, so they'll go to another airline where the starting pay is more than likely better than at Comair.

Damn comair pilots, gready bastards. They are even lucky they have a job. Also, if they are in the regionals, then what else should they expect? not some 125k a year job. Pilots go and be pilots becasue they want to be a pilot. Dont yell about the fact about sacraficeing your money and friends, freetime, fun stuff,and all that other garbage, becasue you knew what was going to happen when you went into even thinking about being a pilot. It's not like other people are cutting back, oh no they aren't, they are rich, everyone is rich, except for the striking pilots. God, just premote the non striking workers to delta's main fleet, then fire all the striking people, put the planes in delta's colors, give the non stikers a raise, and for the strikers... pink slip. 14 hour days are not long, expecialy when your crusing in the air alot more then taking off and landing. For all those cool pilots who work hard, let kids go to the cockpit inflight, and help the company deserve to earn 150k a year, but the mean ones, hope you never get a damn job in your life.

As a wise man once said, actually it was my dad when I was job-hunting in the aviation industry in 1984, "Airlines will come, and airlines will go, but they will always need a place to take off and land!!!".

Hence, I work for an airport operator, safe and secure employment (the pay sucks), great benefits, and I don't have to worry about strikes, picketing, etc. Whenever I see picketers around here, I just laugh...

...which brings up another point, airline employees putting a gun to management. Visualize this, now, when pulling the trigger, three fingers are pointed back at the triggerman.

Tom in NO (at MSY)

P.S. Anybody else see this coming when the UA pilots signed their contract?!

"The criminal ineptitude makes you furious"-Bruce Springsteen, after seeing firsthand the damage from Hurricane Katrina

I don't think I would care if I were the only pilot NOT striking for Comair. In fact, I would probably be flying a lone CRJ out of CVG for the sake of protest alone, even if I got paid the lowest of all Comair pilots.

If you love flying so f---ing much, why do you hate to fly for the salaries and benifits packages that many people would kill for?

If I were in the position to hire pilots for another airline and saw "Comair" on a resume.....well, that resume would hit the round file. Troublemakers. As long as there are kids out there who want to fly, there will be a pool of pilots willing to take those jobs.

Airliners.net has many forums. It has spell check and search functions. Use them before posting!

Bicoastal: "Troublemakers. As long as there are kids out there who want to fly, there will be a pool of pilots willing to take those jobs".

Reply: That's exactly why were in the position were in today. I guess your a born natural at running an airline.

AerLingus: "I don't think I would care if I were the only pilot NOT striking for Comair. In fact, I would probably be flying a lone CRJ out of CVG for the sake of protest alone, even if I got paid the lowest of all Comair pilots".

Reply: That's what happened at Eastern. The managment closed the company down and the employees that crossed the line and they are now scabs flying for companies like Fine Air and Custom Air Transport, and Express.net. Not a good career choice.

The managment doesn't care about you. Something the Comair pilots are well aware of.

I have to agree that an addition of 45 minutes is not that big of deal...so what else is there? Well what about medical and retirement benefits? Benefits for spouses/family memebers (and not just the flight benefits boys and girls)? What about mission lengths and flight times (those pesky RJs are fly farther from home with every new route they open).

Comair is a Delta-owned company, and the pilots want a Delta Airline salary and benefits.

"A compromise is one where both sides agree on most things. A perfect compromise is when both sides leave the table feeling screwed."

Even though I don't agree with any airline shutting down as a result from a strike, I believe that there is a reason why unions were formed. If Delta wants to treat Comair that way, well it's their choice, but ASA will ask for the same as Comair when their contracts are up for renewel. What's going to happen then? Contenental Express will ask the same from Continental, and American Eagle will ask the same from American. How will these majors react to their subsidiaries?

Comair pilots are doing what UA pilots did for the majors, they are setting the trend for regional pilots for the next decade. Whichever way the pilots and Delta goes, the consumer has to be the biggest loser yet.

Unlike the most of you I really believe that the pilots are not in the wrong. The union is set up to protect the rights of employees against the "greed" of the corporation. If you don't like unions...don't join but don't also sling the mud when you don't know what the union is all about. Sure it seems that the pilots are asking for alot but are they really? What do you think upper management is making? Everything is relative. This is America and EVERYBODY has a right to fight for what they think is right, even if in your eyes it may not be. And by the way, I do not work for a union or in one anymore.

Why do i feel this way? Because I can.
Why does Jetpilot feel this way? Because he can.

We all want to make a little more money now don't we? AND have better benefits.

Ian: "Everything is relative. This is America and everybody has the right to fight for what they think is right, even if in your eyes it might not be."

Yeah, Ian, you must believe that Timothy McVeigh was right to fight for what he believed in, using a truckful of explosives. Everything's relative, right?

The union may have the free-speech right to fight for their desire for 85 percent pay increases, but management and consumers sure as hell don't have any obligation to bend over and take it. Fortunately, America is still a free country and owners of property still have the right to dispose of it. That despite unions' best efforts to make business a Communist enterprise. Good for Delta, calling these jokers' bluff. There sure won't be any scabs, as Alpha says, since Comair won't exist anymore.

And as long as the Six Families and their fellow mobsters the employee unions haven't been able to drive low-fare competition out of the sky yet, we consumers have a choice on more and more routes. And the low-fares increasingly offer a better product too, since they tend to have to care about customer service.

The Gall Comair pilots have makes me want to vomit.
Greedy bastards.
What about the many non-striking workers that could be out of a job?
I'm sure you will will have NO problem sleeping at night with the knowledge that "you did what was right, you made them pay".
Too bad many of the people that used to load, fix, and otherwise service your airplanes will not enjoy the same restful sleep.

DCA...Off topic
Actually you seem to be twisting this one around. As far as my dear friend Timmy is concerned what goes on in his head is his business. If he thought that what he did was right then who am I to judge? I firmly believe that only one person SHOULD judge...GOD..

The definition of a scab is a funny thing indeed, in most cases it's the character assasination of some poor soul who couldn't afford to live by the impending ruination the union would impose on them or their families. As for management, I wish pilots would quit moaning, a lot of management are ex pilots, but the problem is that the pilots of an airline don't realise that when they fight management they only hurt their own airline. Perhaps they don't care. They have a complete siege mentality. But the problem with ruining scabs lives is that the unions are destroying people who the unions themselves drove to do what they did, it should be a persons choice whether or not to be union, not dictated by some group of backstreet gangsters.